A weekend adventure

We went down to South West Rocks for the weekend. The drive is normally around 5 hours without stopping plus with the extra daylight savings hour added, we arrived around 12:20am. Despite Lani and I telling my parents to go to bed and leave the key under the mat, Mum and Dad stayed up and greeted us on arrival. The kids did their best to stay up but fell asleep for the last hour of the drive.

In the morning, I went fishing with Dad and my uncle Ken. I was hoping to catch my first big jewfish but unfortunately the wind and the tide was not on our side making conditions less than favourable. Uncle Ken managed to catch a nice size flathead around 80cm in length which we released back into the water but we couldn’t stir up anything else. It was still a good day out in the boat catching up with Dad and uncle Ken. I learnt a thing or two about catching a jewfish and hope to catch one up here on the Gold Coast in the near future.

Lani, Mum, the kids and my uncle John and aunt Roselyn spent the day down at Horseshoe Bay having a swim and enjoyed themselves.

Saturday night Mum put on a roast lamb dinner with apple pie for dessert, which was the highlight of Lani’s weekend. She particularly likes my mother’s roast dinners and apple pies.

On Sunday the wind was pretty bad so I didn’t entertain the idea of going fishing. We went for a bit of a swim down at Trial Bay, visited the lighthouse at Smokey Cape and then went to uncle Ken and Heather’s place for a barbeque lunch.

After lunch we packed our stuff up and headed back home at around 3:40pm. Unfortunately the journey home wasn’t too good. The Pacific Hwy was closed for road works somewhere between Grafton and Ballina, so we took a ‘scenic’ route via Casino. At Casino we made a couple of phone calls to John and Krysti (who looked up Google Maps) and gave us 2 options to head back to the Gold Coast. Lani and I decided to gamble on the more adventuress route via Kyogle and Murwillumbah, which in hindsight proved to be a bad decision. The road to Kyogle was great but the 69kms from Kyogle to Murwillumbah was windy and narrow going over what seemed to be an endless mountain range. At Murwillumbah we made another bad decision and headed up another long mountain road to finally get back onto the motorway at Currumbin. I think it would have been quite a scenic journey had it been in the daylight because we also passed by Mount Warning. But we were travelling in the night and saw nothing but a narrow tar road bordered by trees, frogs, cane toads and a stack of bugs now plastered to our car. The whole diversion probably added another 30-40 minutes to our journey and we learnt a few valuable lessons. 1. When going on a long trip, take a map even if you know the way. 2. Keep a torch in the car. Thankfully we didn’t need one but if something went wrong with the car, a torch would be very handy in a dark forest in the middle of nowhere.

In the garden again

Had a lot of rain earlier this week that was good for the garden and topped up the pool a little. I have ordered a water diverter, which I plan to install onto one of our garage downpipes. It has a connection that a pool hose can fit on so you can divert rainwater into the pool rather than it just going straight into the storm water drain.

Yesterday morning I went to the beach for a surf. I invited the kids but it was a little too early for them. With no wind, the water was quite glassy and I really enjoyed riding some good waves. The water temperature at the moment is 21 degrees so it is quite nice for a dip.

Today I did a fair bit of gardening in the 32 degree heat. I think I have finally come up with a plan to finish most of the gardens around the house. It is going to involve a bit of plant reshuffling, which they don’t particularly like but I am confident that everything planted will thrive and live happily ever after. Next weekend I hope to put the plan into action and bring it all together. Should be fun!

We all had a swim in the pool together today. The pool definitely comes in handy when working around the yard. I had a swim 4 times today which really helped me cool down and relax before getting back into some more gardening.

Hopefully by the end of this coming week Lani and I might have some good news on new work opportunities. Fingers crossed. Then we might be able to plan and organised what we are going to be doing for the school holidays and Christmas/New Year.

No respect...back in the surf

During the week we attended the kid’s school ‘Musical Showcase’ at the Gold Coast Arts Centre. Jasmine sang a couple of songs in the infants choir. It was quite a good night with a couple hundred kids involved. Although I must admit I am not a big fan of school brass bands. I also don’t like people who think it is OK to have a chat during the performances. Unfortunately I had two women sitting behind me chatting away constantly. They were so loud at one point that I could not hear one of the kids announcing the next performance. I turned around and politely (with no doubt an angry face) asked for them not to speak while the kids were performing.

Last night some people across the road from us had a party. Almost every time they have a party some of their visitors have a little too much to drink, which invariably ends in fights, arguments or people calling out to each other very late at night. I always do a quick sweep of our nature strip the morning after because some ferals like to throw their takeaway rubbish and beer bottles out of the cars before they leave. How hard is it to throw your rubbish in your own bin when you get home?

Today I went down to the beach for a surf on my wave ski. The kids weren’t too interested in going and Lani was happy to stay at home with them. On the way to the beach I had just turned onto the M1 motorway when I realised I forgot to put my paddle in the car. With no exits until Smith St I had to do a big loop to get back home. 15 minutes later I had the paddle and was on my way again. I was just glad I didn’t get to the beach before realising I didn’t have the paddle. The surf was quite good this morning and I really enjoyed my couple of hours on the water.